I've always wanted to make my own joystick. I'll be at an event or convention, and I'll see some guy who has his own handmade rig, and I'll think to myself damn, that guy is for real. And while it's always gratifying to lay the smackdown on another with the standard controller, it has got to feel much better doing so with something you made by your own hand.

With some of these custom sticks I've seen lately, I've been motivated to create my own. More on that later. For now, check out these:

The first comes from Destructoid community member CAVE. His custom Ikaruga stick looks great. His blog says that it took two weeks of building and even more planning to put this sweet stick together. For those down with the lingo, it uses Seimitsu buttons and joystick, and Toodle's Cthulhu PCB for both PC and PS3 compatibility.

Destructoid's very own nilcam has modded what he calls The Zero Stick, and the end result looks fantastic. A hardcore Mega Man fan, nilcam chose Zero for the art for his custom rig, a mod of the Hori Real Arcade Pro 3. Blog entries detail the full progress, but there's no denying that the end result is sweet.

The final comes from PS3Maven, and is a Chun-Li Street Fighter IV in-tray kind of affair.  It looks like a lot of work went into this. It's cool that the same device you play your games on could also hold a beer.